On 16 May 2009, at 8:13, James Waddick wrote: > Yesterday the first flower opened on Tulipa sprengeri. It is > by far the last tulip to bloom here. I anticipate its bloom each year. That makes two of us. I've been growing it for about 20 years. Yes, it self-sows with reasonable freedom _in_ _the_ _garden_ but not under wild-ish conditions. My house is at the end of a long (300') lane that is rather wild, and over the years I've tried to introduce various ornamentals there. Very few have established. Along the line of my water line, which was backfilled with pit run gravel (i.e. sand and gravel mixed), there is some Tulipa sprengeri, but it neither flowers freely nor sets seed well, perhaps because of a lack of light from trees overhead, perhaps from the lean soil they grow in, perhaps from root competition with the trees. In 1997 on a visit to Saltspring Island, I took along a huge quantity of T.s. seed and spent an afternoon sprinkling it here and there along the rough roadsides. To my knowledge, no T.s. blooms on Saltspring Island. I cannot say, however, if this is because the seed was eaten by critters, or the flower buds form but are eaten by deer. Whichever, it's clearly not easy to establish outside the garden by scattering seed. I believe the bulbs do, in fact, multiply if they are growing well. I definitely have clumps of T.s. here and there. It is a common plant as seed, uncommon as a bulb. Christine Skelmersdale wrote a squib on the Broadleigh nursery for a commemorative issue of either the AGS or SRGC bulletin, and remarked how difficult it is to find the bulbs when customers order them. They burrow down very deeply in their special bed, and aren't very large. I wondered at the time if fly screen would suffice to keep them from burrowing more deeply. When the AGS got its seed exchange going around 1950, E. B. Anderson, who ran the exchange in its first years specifically said "no Tulipa sprengeri" in his advice to donors. It was considered too common and weedy, I suppose. But otoh, EBA was an expert bulb grower so his perspective was a tad biased. It's a plant I wouldn't want to be without and I don't mind that it's gradually turning up here and there in my garden. I have a bulb or two of purported 'Trotter's Form' from exchange seed, but I see no difference between it and what usually develops. I am not even sure what the difference is supposed to be. I suspect, Jim, that your difficulty with T.s. is (as so often the case) due to climate. Our climate here, with its wet winters, bone dry summers, moderate temperatures, and very few humid days is ideal for many Mediterranean bulbs, hence T.s. does very well. It may also be significant that our soils are naturally rather poor due to leaching of soluble nutrients by heavy winter rains. They are quite deficient in nitrogen, magnesium, and calcium in particular. EBA used a strategy for growing summer-dry bulbs in the damp climates he gardened in: he planted them among the roots of deciduous trees and shrubs. The bulbs completed their growth cycle and were fading by the time the deciduous material overhead started to leaf out and pump moisture from the soil underneath. As long as T.s. gets adequate sun during its spring growth period, it doesn't matter if it's shaded during the summer. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island http://maps.google.ca/maps/…